“I learned very early what it was like to see a child come to school and try to study, try to perform well and be hungry,” Clyburn said. “Or see them at their third- or fourth-period class, knowing full well that all they had for breakfast was a Pepsi Cola, or something of that sort that had enough caffeine in it to give them the energy they needed to get through the day. I learned that watching those young people.

“But in that school, in a number of those classes, there were young people there that I knew if they’d got the opportunity, would make significant contributions to this great world of ours.”

Clyburn’s remarks came at a Capitol Hill event organized by the Benjamin Banneker Institute for Science and Technology in the Rayburn House Office Building on 3 June. The six-hour gathering of more than 60 included engineers, scientists, college professors, military personnel, entrepreneurs, association and industry representatives, a school superintendent and two teachers from McKinley Technology High School, a Washington, D.C., public school, among others.

Other featured speakers included Vice Admiral Adam Robinson, the surgeon general of the Navy; and David Owens, an IEEE member and vice president of the Edison Electric Institute.

“If we [the United States] are to maintain our worldwide competitiveness, it’s all going to be about technology,” Owens said. “It’s going to be mobilizing our young people to get into these very significant fields.”

Owens, who served as emcee, also read a statement from Dr. John Brooks Slaughter, president and CEO of the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering (NACME) and former chancellor of the University of Maryland, College Park.

Slaughter, an IEEE Life Fellow, was unable to attend because of recent surgery.

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